As a professional Voice Actor of almost three years, I’ve worked my tail off to figure out the best means of not only finding clients and getting paid, but everything that comes before, in between, and after that. The emails that go out, the auditions I submit, the connections I make with potential leads, the stats I choose to measure, the times I never hear back, and how I organize each day and present myself to people that come in contact with me and my work.

But out of everything I do, these are the top strategies I employ in my business that I give credit to my success so far. Remember, success is what we define for ourselves so it’s important for each of us to start there before we go about deciding which tasks get our attention each day.

Ok, here are the top strategies I use in my business which I give credit for providing me my first 10,000 month:

1. Showing up every day.

This may feel like a small feat, but if you’re a freelancer like me you understand just how difficult showing up can be on any given day. Unless I’m feeling unwell or am mentally unavailable for other people and tasks, I am working in my office and studio. I’m working on current projects, auditioning, writing, and producing new demos for my business, working on my websites, creating products, nurturing relationships with other Voice Actors, colleagues, and clients, producing this show, and other things I’ve deemed as worthwhile for my goals and ambitions. But I’ve committed to show up. I’m not scared to do this anymore because I’ve seen where showing up and doing what I need to do gets me. I’m not perfect at this, but I do my best to stay in the zone and put my best foot forward each and every moment during work hours. Because what I do is not only for me – it’s for my family so I better do my damndest.

2. Prioritizing my daily projects and tasks.

Only choosing to work on what absolutely needs to be done on a daily basis has skyrocketed my business growth which has allowed me more control over my daily schedule.

At the end of 2020, my husband and I looked at what brought in the most revenue to my business. We sat down and decided the top four things that I should focus on every day: Current jobs, auditions, sending marketing emails, and responding to messages in my inbox. That is it. No fluff. Monday through Friday you can bet I’m engaging in one of those four things at any given time.

Yes, I take time to write and produce my podcast content and post to social media but that only accounts for a very tiny portion of each day. I’m not perfect at this by any means but I’m never unaware of what I need to be doing each day which is a huge piece of the puzzle for anyone who works for themself.

3. Keeping my work pipeline full.

One of the reasons auditioning, no, THE reason auditioning is my most important task for each day is because it offers up however many new opportunities for me to get work and get paid. Not only that, but even if I don’t get paid, that’s another human potentially listening to my voice and delivery who might hire me in the future if I don’t get the job they currently have available. This has happened to me countless times using Voics.com and some of those clients are recurring clients of mine now. There is power in these kinds of numbers. You never know who is listening and who is noting your name down for the future.

The true power in the pipeline is that if I know because of basic math and how things work in the world, the more I audition, put myself out there by sharing my portfolio and demos, talking about my services, reaching out to new leads, the more chances I potentially have of even a small percentage of those things working out. And once one works out, and another, and another, you begin to see a trickle-down effect from month to month. In Voiceoverview, which you know is one of my favorite tools for Voice Actors, I can see how much work I’ve booked, invoiced for, and been paid for at any given time. I’m aware of each stage of my pipeline pretty much at all times. But the work begins at the front of the line – building those numbers and continuing to do the work to see them grow.

4. Measuring what I can control.

One of the most important things that help us not get stuck in the weeds of our businesses is to be sure we’re measuring what we can control. I.e. how many auditions we audition for, how many marketing emails we send each week, etc.